Whiff

Dann, author of the tremendously popular and oft-updated blog A Total Waste of Time, came down to visit me a couple days ago and the first thing we did was go out to the batting cages for a little home run derby. It was my idea. I figured that we could engage in male bonding by chatting about baseball between swings.

What was supposed to be a fun and relaxing hour at the cages, however, turned out to be a nightmare which will no doubt continue to haunt me for weeks to come.

I COULD NOT HIT A BASEBALL IF MY LIFE DEPENDED ON IT. I COULD NOT. I COULD NOT. I COULD NOT.

The pitching machine we went on was only throwing 55 MPH, and Dann hit a respectable 50 percent of those pitches. But to me it might as well been throwing 95 MPH -- with a dizzying assortment of sweeping curveballs and hard sliders and off-speed stuff -- because I COULD NOT HIT A BASEBALL IF MY LIFE DEPENDED ON IT. I COULD NOT. After the first several fireball pitches, all of which I whiffed on, I looked at Dann in a confused panic and said, "What's wrong with me??"

Dann shrugged, and I continued to whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff.

I felt hotter and hotter by the minute and I heard an eight year old boy whisper into his mom's ear, "Mommy, why can't the man hit the ball?"

His mom replied, "I don't know, baby. Baby, I don't know."

I choked up higher on the bat. I opened up my stance. I kissed my lucky Cubs Believe bracelet and prayed to a God I doubt exists because no omnibenevolent being would allow me to humiliate myself like that and STILL all I could do is whiff. And whiff. And whiff. Even with my hitting mechanics modeled after a winning combination of Ryne Sandberg and Sammy Sosa, even with years of batting cage experience that might have been devoted a little too much to the slow softball pitch cages BUT STILL, even with all of that I COULD NOT HIT A BASEBALL IF MY LIFE DEPENDED ON IT. I COULD NOT.

All I did was whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. AND WHIFF. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And, whiff!

Somewhere in a parallel universe that's even more cruel than this one, there's an ESPN Sportscenter bloopers segment with carnival music as the audio and me in fast-motion, whiffing on 36 straight pitches and Dan Patrick saying "the whiff" over and over and over. Into infinitude.

"Didn't you play baseball when you were a kid?" Dann asked.

I could only answer him in whiffs today.

After it was over and I was trying my best not to hang my head down as I walked out of my cage, the little eight year old boy cheerfully ran into the cage and put his tokens in. His heavy baseball helmet devoured his head and his bat was probably larger than he was.

"Mommy, mommy, look what I can do!" he said. And the little boy, who kept his eye on the ball like a good little boy, he squashed the tiny bug to deep left-center.

Dann, who can definitely vouch for this little boy's unexaggerated talents, was as gracious as he possibly could be about the whole situation, but even he couldn't resist saying to me, "I think you need to work on your swing."

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. That's why I can't stop thinking about what happened. That's why I haven't written anything on my blog these past couple days. The nightmare keeps playing and re-playing in my head, where I can't do anything but whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff. And whiff.

And whiff. AND WHIFF. And whiff. AND WHIFF. And whiff. AND WHIFF. And whiff.

AnD wHiFf. A N D W H I F F.

And whiff.

And whiff.